sonnet

doge

Niccolò Machiavelli

Italian Renaissance writer, described government in the way it actually worked (ruthless) from Florence. He wrote The Prince that emphasized rules who did whatever it took to maintain control and power (the ends justify the means)

William Shakespeare

Thomas More

was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist that wrote Utopia, a fictional world where every citizen had equal rights. He was a strong Catholic and key advisor to King Henry VIII rising to the job of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. He will later be beheaded for opposing King Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Merchant

The Prince

Decameron

literary work by Boccaccio which was composed of 100 vulgar tales told by three men and seven women in a country retreat from the plague that ravaged Florence in 1348; both a stinging social commentary (sexual/economic misconduct) and a sympathetic look at human behavior

City-State

A political phenomenon of small independent states in the northern Italian peninsula between the 10th and 15th centuries with the city having political and economic control over the surrounding countryside.

Oligarchy

New Monarch

Rulers of the late 15th and early 16th c. in unified nations like England, France, and Spain who were strong and especially successful in accumulating and centralizing their power. They controlled government by taxation, law courts, police/professional army, and appointed officials to work for them.

Diplomacy

Peace of Lodi

Made in 1454, this ended a war among Milan, Florence, and Venice. Cosimo de Medici made a lasting peace by having an alliance between Milan, Naples, and Florence on one side, and Venice and the Papal States on the other. Lasted for 40 years, and represents one of earliest appearances in European history of a diplomatic balance of power for maintaining peace.

Florence

Rome

Capital city of The Papal States which was comprised of territories under direct sovereign rule of the papacy. This was the base of the political and governing power of the Catholic Church as well as its religious power.

Venice

A major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades. It was a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music.

Germany

Area in Central Europe that was divided up among many Princes. Although they were united under the Hapsburg rule of the Holy Roman Empire in name, they failed to be united during the Northern Renaissance.

Low Countries

the lowland region of western Europe on the North Sea: Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The Northern Renaissance happened nearly 100 years after the Italian Renaissance from the late 15th century to the early 17th century.

England

Christian Humanists

Intellectuals in the late 15th and early 16th centuries who dreamed of idealistic societies based on peace, morality, and Christian virtue and sought to realize the ethical ideals of the classical world and the Scriptures. Their ideals applied the techniques and outlook of renaissance humanism to Christianity and the Bible and strongly influenced Martin Luther and other early Protestant reformer, such as Erasmus.